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Welcome
Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
A Taphophilia Thank You...
Taphophilia (dot) Com would not be possible without the knowledge, experience and talent of DarkestWeb. From its conception and early development, DarkestWeb was faced with many challenges; from inspiring and motivating, to providing guidance and direction. The continued dedication and support has produced results greater than ever expected, and for this, I owe a huge debt of gratitude.
Announcements
Men of Mortuaries Calendar
To purchase your 2008 calendar, learn more about the KAMMCARES Foundation, or to be featured in the 2009 calendar, please visit Men of Mortuaries.
Epitaphs: The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers By Cemetery Lovers
For information regarding subscriptions, single issues, submission guidelines, deadlines, classifieds or advertising for future issues, please visit The Cemetery Club.
Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints, Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture
with photography by John Bower and foreword by Claude Cookman is now
available. Please visit
Studio Indiana for more information.
West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
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Arrete! C'est ici L'Empire de la Mort -- "Stop! This is the Empire of Death."
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Celebrity Deaths
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Tuesday, 06 November 2007 |
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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Don Freeland, who drove in the Indianapolis 500 eight times and finished third in 1956, has died at age 82. Freeland, of Torrance, Calif., died Nov. 2 in San Diego after a period of declining health, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway said Tuesday.
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Media Reviews
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Tuesday, 06 November 2007 |
Book Review By Marilyn Bardsley
Beating the Devil's Game: A History of Forensic Science and Criminal Investigation
By Dr. Katherine Ramsland
Now I know what to get for holiday gifts for those of my friends that are "crime TV" addicts. This very enjoyable and instructive new book by Dr. Ramsland could also be titled Great Moments in Forensic Science. While everyone who watches the popular forensics shows on TV knows how important DNA, luminol, fiber evidence and other modern-day forensic tools are to solving crime, most people have no idea how these techniques slowly, and often contentiously, evolved into their present-day acceptance in the courtroom. Nor do people have any appreciation of how the early forensic pioneers and their supporters risked their reputations and careers developing, testing and defending the new scientific methods.
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Serial Killers
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Tuesday, 06 November 2007 |
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Having profiled in documentary form the exploits of early American serial killers H.H. Holmes and Albert Fish, filmmaker John Borowski is now moving on to Carl Panzram. Hung in 1930 for killing a Leavenworth prison guard, here’s what serial killer Carl Panzram had to say about his previous criminal deeds: ‘In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and last but not least I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings,’
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Ancient Egypt
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Monday, 05 November 2007 |
By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News
Black, leathery, shriveled and cracked, King Tut emerged with a toothy smile from his gleaming sarcophagus on Sunday, showing his face to the world for the first time. Exactly 85 years after Howard Carter discovered the pharaoh's treasure-packed tomb, King Tut's mummy left forever his original sarcophagus and moved to a new coffin in the antechamber of his small underground tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
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Funeral Industry
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Monday, 05 November 2007 |
By Charmaine Smith-Miles
South Carolina - A crisp wind blows through the trees, rustling the dried-out leaves. Birds
chirp their messages to each another in the graveyard of this church that is
perched in the middle of a pasture in northern Anderson County.
For a bit these are the only noises that break through the silence of the
country landscape.
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Strange and Unusual
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Sunday, 04 November 2007 |
ORLANDO, Fla.,- Police in Orlando, Fla., have
arrested a man for allegedly attacking a dead body in an open casket at a local
church. Orlando police alleged that Timothy Cleary entered Harvest
Baptist Church during a funeral and proceeded to punch and attack the body
inside the displayed casket, Florida's WKMG-TV, Orlando, reported Sunday.
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Mourning
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Sunday, 04 November 2007 |
By Stefanie Kranjec
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadians are becoming wordier, particularly when it comes to their last words. Alberta-based author Nancy Millar has wandered the country's graveyards and says that over the past 20 years, gravestone epitaphs have begun to illustrate a trend of Canadians wanting to be more than "eternally beloved" when they "rest in peace."
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Pop Culture
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Wednesday, 31 October 2007 |
By John W. Whitehead
Borderfire Report
“I am
Dracula.”—Bela Lugosi
Halloween is associated with strange creatures, but
none more so than the vampire. To most, the vampire is a myth, an image
popularized in movies, television and books. Yet the vampire is no mere
Hollywood creation. It is a universal legend.
Stories about this
blood-sucking fiend have been told throughout the world for centuries, perhaps
as long as tales have been told. The villagers of Uganda, Haiti, Indonesia and
the Upper Amazon all have their local variety of vampire. Native American
tribes, Arctic Eskimos and many Arabian tribes know the vampire well. Many of
the stories are obviously myth, but some no doubt have their roots in
reality.
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Pop Culture
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Tuesday, 30 October 2007 |
The King reclaims his top spot on the list with a $49 million year, while settlements with Apple and EMI boost the Beatle to No. 2.
By Lea Goldman and Jake Paine for Forbes.com
The 13 legends in our seventh annual list of the top-earning dead celebrities grossed a combined $232 million in the past 12 months. Many are instantly recognizable one-name wonders (Elvis, Marilyn, Warhol) who still command attention worldwide, making them a marketer's ideal pitchman.
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Strange and Unusual
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Tuesday, 30 October 2007 |
By KATIE MENZER
Dallas - On the face of it, the truck full of human heads could have been a Halloween prank or the makings of a scary movie. "This is in the top five of the strangest things – maybe the strangest – that I've ever encountered," Hunt County Justice of the Peace Aaron Williams said Monday. Judge Williams was called to the scene when a regular traffic stop Sunday morning by Royse City police turned into a grisly discovery of severed heads in the back of a tractor-trailer.
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Eco-Friendly Burial
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Sunday, 28 October 2007 |
By JOHN RICHARDSON
Some believe that services at home and simple caskets gradually will change how society deals with death. Klara Tammany's mother didn't want a typical American funeral. No embalming, no metal casket, not even a funeral home. When she died after a long illness a couple of years ago, family members and friends washed and dressed her body and put it in a homemade wooden casket, which was laid across two sawhorses in the dining room of her condo in Brunswick.
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History
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Tuesday, 23 October 2007 |
By Steven Stanek
King Tutankhamun likely died after falling from his chariot while hunting, Egypt's top archaeologist says in an upcoming TV documentary, offering new insights into the boy pharaoh's long-debated death. Tutankhamun is widely thought to have died of an infection stemming from a broken leg, after CT scans in 2005 revealed a severe fracture in his left thighbone, challenging theories that he had been murdered.
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Taphophilia Facts
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According to USA Today, Americans are increasingly considering home funerals as a cheaper and more relaxed alternative to commercial mortuary services. Traditional U.S. funerals average $5,000 to $6,000, per the Funeral Consumers Alliance.
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Quote Repository
“For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.” William Penn
Grave Epigrams
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I with my offspring here securely rest, God takes or leaves our comforts as is best. Prepare my friends, to meet me on that shore Where soul bereavements shall be felt no more. Dedham, MA 1821 |
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Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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